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The night was dark and stormy, rain pounding against the window like wet, dead fingers begging to be let inside, the blackness around him only disturbed by a flash of lightning. He buried his head in his hands, shivering and flinching when the thunder rolled.
“What have I done?” he murmured to himself, over and over again. “What the hell have I done.”
You sit down on the bed beside him and run your fingers through Castiel's hair. Well, not really. You're not really with him in the abandoned house in any physical sense but what's the point of being older than dirt if you can't shape it to your will?
"It's okay," you tell Castiel. "Nobody likes politicians, even now."
Castiel looks up at you, black streaks down his face. You run a finger through the black stains. It's you. The real you. The rest of you that is trying to escape the tiny vessel you've been crammed into.
"It wasn't right. Most of those people didn't deserve it," Castiel whispers. The tiny human eyes squint at you.
You wonder what Castiel sees when he looks at you. You wonder if it hurts the way it hurts humans to look at angels. But then, this isn't really you anyway. You're the black streaks oozing down Castiel's cheeks.
The lightening flashes again, casting only one shadow in the room. It slithers and pulses the way shadows used to. The way you remember the world working. The shadow flickers in the lightening flashes, crawling forward to curl around Castiel's ankle.
Castiel looks away when you don't respond. What is there to say? You don't care. You didn't know the words right and deserve until Castiel pulled you out of Purgatory and ate you up with everyone else. Nobody and nothing deserved anything before. You lived or you were eaten. What's right never entered into it and certainly no one ever told you that you deserved to live or eat. You simply did as you must.
"We should go find someone else," you suggest. You tap your fingers on one of your stomachs. You hadn't been able to convince Castiel to sate the hunger the last time but you know you're not far from winning him over or taking control by force. You consider the angel-playing-god beside you. He feels all sorts of things but ultimately, they're the same thing that you know so well. They're hunger. The angel-playing-god hungers, just with different shades of taste from your own.
It takes you a few minutes to decide what an angel-playing-god is hungry for.
"We could go find someone else who deserves it. Some one who's wicked," you say. That's another new word. It tastes strange when you say it. Castiel has called you that a few times now, along with evil, tainted, and bad. You think they mean starving in different ways.
"No," Castiel says as if he knows what you really want. "I'm not going to kill anyone else."
Thunder rolls in the distance. The lightening flashes again. The shadow creeps up Castiel's leg to nestle in his lap. You trail your fingers through the black streaks on Castiel's cheeks. You know it won't be much longer before you escape.
Castiel abruptly stands. The shadow stays in place, floating above the bed. Castiel glares at you. He glows a faint blue that doesn't brighten the room. You can see the real him for a moment. So small and fragile. You could wrap yourself around six times over and still have room to hide a second angel inside you. You could crush them both without meaning too.
You doubt an angel could live with true hunger.
The black stains on his cheeks fade to nothing. Castiel narrows the tiny human eyes at you as if he's won something. You don't bother to tell him that he lost as soon as he ate you and everything like you. It's just a matter of waiting. You're very good at waiting. You've had to wait so long.
"You don't have to do it," you tell him. Soon he won't be able to even if he wanted to. "Rest for a bit. I can do it for you."
Castiel shakes his head and turns away. That shadow slides to the side and wraps around you. You let your fingers play through it while you ignore the hunger that's always there. He won't be able to hold you back much longer. There's no point in arguing with an angel-playing-god when all you have to do is wait.